Closer View [Original recording reissued]

Gary Peacock, Ralph Towner | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 15, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued
• Label: Ecm Records
• ASIN: B000024X4X
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #119,077 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Guitarist Ralph Towner and bassist Gary Peacock are legendary in jazz: Towner for cofounding Oregon and Peacock for playing with everyone from Albert Ayler to Keith Jarrett. A Closer View presents them as a duo performing quietly dynamic, wide-ranging acoustic jazz. Towner's classical guitar strums urge an almost struck tone, with rich crispness that both shines and aches. But Towner also makes his guitar sing, getting milky resonance from single notes and sharp, quick clarity whenever he wants it. Peacock plays his bass broadly, coaxing a bellow on the low end and a dancing lightness on the high end. The 12 songs here are so intimate they almost make one feel voyeuristic for listening. Towner and Peacock play their fast tunes with bewildering precision and grace, and they utilize silent space, as on "Amber Captive," as if silence were the duo's third instrument. Whether playing sublimely slow or at a racing clip, Towner and Peacock play with fat power and oceanic depth. --Andrew Bartlett

The Los Angeles Times

In this kind of acoustic environment, Peacock is obliged to use his bass in guitar-like manner, fashioning low-note extensions and counterlines to supplement and contrast Towner’s guitar.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Closest View, September 24, 2004

By 

William Lenihan (Rome, Italy) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Closer View (Audio CD)

A Closer View is a good title for this recording because listening to these two masterful musicians play together, one gets the impression that the listener is within extremely close proximity to, or perhaps has fallen into, the intimate world of sounds and emotions created. There is a strange, organic quality to this music of the kind one can only hear from jazz musicians who have played the standards, the post-bop music and who also play freely. In fact, a number of the tunes on this recording were improvisations where Towner or Peacock would start and the other would follow. They are essentially 'free' pieces where they think together, feel together and create simple melodies and harmonies with an unerring sophistication. Both Towner and Peacock have broken ground over the last 30 years but both have remained rooted in the language and emotional field of Bill Evans, Miles Davis and simultaneously, European Modernism. Both play music as though they were painters and story tellers - i.e. they play in the manner of all great jazz musicians.
Nothing is arbitrary and nothing is contrived or stylized though both are virtuosi in the practices of standard jazz music. These truly great artists are rare and we, the listener have this opportunity to hear their music in this quiet and intimate form. Only Keith Jarret in our day, can evoke such worlds of sound and simple beauty. The music in this recording is indeed pure mastery but more than that, it evokes the higher side of humanity.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not abstract music, July 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: A Closer View (Audio CD)

The cover of "A Closer View" is a black and white abstraction. The music inside is neither black and white nor abstract. Each piece is a vignette, some emotional, beautiful pieces; others pulsing and singing. This is not strictly intellectual music--it grabs your emotions. Beautifully recorded, it has a feeling of being there with the two virtuosi as they improvise. Love that double bass! Highly recommended for fans of jazz, acoustic and classical music.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Perfect Match, January 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Closer View (Audio CD)

Towner and Peacock are masters of their respective instruments, and discover a truly sumptous array of nuances in entirely acoustic performances on this recording. In each tune, there always seems to be a melodic or harmonic suprise ready to jump out with every other measure. The first track in particular features some striking shifts between brooding wistfulness and sweet lyricism. This recording only seems more wonderful with repeated listening. It's probably the best recording yet by either performer. (Also check out their very successful previous recording called Oracle -- no relation to the database.)